Research lead
Three new pesticide risk assessment and management tools developed in the EU’s Footprint project were launched this week at the programme’s final conference at Giesen University, Germany.
“Footprint enables a consistent approach to pesticide risk assessment and is the first endeavour in Europe to incorporate the same concepts and approaches in a series of tools, allowing integrated assessments to be performed at different scales in the EU,” said Kathy Lewis, Head of the Agricultural & Environmental Research Unit at Hertfordshire University’s Science and Technology Research Institute (STRI), where one of the tools was developed.
The computerised tools are intended for use by farmers, water managers and policy makers. Each tool allows: the identification of pesticide contamination pathways in the landscape; the estimation of levels of pesticides being transferred towards surface water and groundwater; specific recommendations to be made to reduce the contamination of water resources by pesticides.
The tools are supported by a comprehensive database containing information on the chemical and ecotoxicological properties of pesticides registered in the EU.
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